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A significant number of criminal and deviant acts are investigated by nonpolice actors. These include private investigators who charge fees for their services, professional services firms such as firms of accountants who also charge fees, in-house investigators employed by private organisations and in-house investigators of public sector organisations who are not sworn police officers. Some of these investigators, such as private investigators, have been exposed in unethical activities such as illegal surveillance and blagging to name some. In this respect, this study aims to uncover the ethical orientations of investigators using cluster analysis.

This study is based upon an online survey of private investigators predominantly in the UK, i.e. investigators beyond the public police. An innovate statistical inferential analysis was used to investigate the sample which resulted in the development of three ethical orientations of such investigators.

Based upon a survey response from 331 of these types of investigators this study illustrates the extent they engage in unethical activities, showing a very small minority of largely private investigators who engage in such activities.

A unique feature of this study is the use of an innovative statistical approach using an unsupervised machine learning model, namely, TwoStep cluster analysis, to successfully group and classify respondents based on their ethical orientation. The model derived three types of ethical orientation: ethical, inbetweeners and risk takers.

Pyramid schemes create an unusual situation, where the victims might be effectively turned into offenders, as their role is to recruit more victims to the pyramid scheme. This paper aims to investigate the prevalence of pyramid schemes, their modern forms and why people join them.

This paper has developed from a structured literature review carried out as part of a wider study into policing pyramid schemes.

This paper identifies a range of reasons why people join pyramid schemes. Some of these reasons are “participant dominant”, including the vision of high reward for little work and the attraction to a better lifestyle. Other reasons are “organiser dominant”, including the exploitation of specific groups and high-pressure sales. These findings suggest significant differences in levels of culpability of pyramid schemes victims and perpetrators. This complexity is accompanied by conceptual, regulatory and institutional challenges.

Despite the profound and pervasive impact of pyramid schemes, researchers know very little about why some people participate in pyramid schemes. Limited research is largely American and specific to illegal multi-level marketing schemes. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to provide an overview of a mix of strategies of participants of pyramid schemes to recruit new victims and reasons why people are joining pyramid schemes.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the perception and experience of counter pharmaceuticals in Nigeria compared to the European Union.

The findings from this paper are based upon a survey of 362 Nigerians sourced in public places with the data and then compared results from a survey by the European Union.

The key findings from this research showed some areas of similarity between Nigerians and Europeans on their views on the acceptability of purchasing counterfeits. However, Nigerians were more open to purchasing counterfeits despite the risks. There was also more anxiety over the risk of purchasing counterfeit medicines compared to the European Union.

Due to security issues, survey data could only be sourced from Abuja, Lagos and the relatively peaceful southwestern region of Nigeria. The data is, therefore, not representative of Nigeria.

The purchasing experience of counterfeit medicines by Nigerians along with their anxieties highlights the need for more enforcement action to tackle this problem and reassure the public.

The paper highlights the challenges of securing genuine pharmaceutical products in the Global South and the need for more greater cross-border action to tackle the problem.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first survey of Nigerian citizens on this issue.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of media coverage on offenders convicted of occupational fraud and corruption in the UK. It examines the extent of media coverage and provides insights into the experiences of offenders.

The study is based upon interviews with 17 convicted offenders, and on a content analysis of one national and two regional newspapers in the UK.

The findings suggest that offenders convicted of occupational crime and corruption are more likely to experience media coverage than previously assumed and that personal digital criminal legacies create long-term labels which lead to economic strains and social fractures that hinder productive reintegration into society.

The research is limited by a small sample frame in the UK. Nevertheless, the findings suggest further research is required as they have important implications for privacy and rehabilitation.

In particular, offenders and their families need support in dealing with their personal digital criminal legacies, accessing their privacy rights and coping with the strains created by online stigmatisation. From a policy perspective, the existing regulatory framework that supports rehabilitation in the UK, especially the increasingly archaic Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, requires close examination and debate to ensure it is fit for the digital era. The findings also suggest that policies, practices and responsibilities of the public sector in employing offenders need to be examined.

It is a rare study of white-collar offenders after their release from prison. The findings are of relevance to criminal justice policy makers, rehabilitation services and academics.

This paper aims to provide a comprehensive review of literature on policing money laundering to evaluate the quality of evidence presented in academic and grey literature. In doing so, this paper reflects upon what strategies and mechanisms work in preventing, detecting and disrupting money laundering.

To investigate the quality of evidence presented in academic and grey literature on money laundering, the authors have conducted a structured literature review of over 1,000 sources. The authors have then evaluated the quality of evidence of these sources by using three distinct methods, namely, the Maryland scale, research excellence framework and quality of empirical evidence framework.

This paper finds a large number of studies on money laundering meeting the highest academic quality standard. However, only a very small number of those studies include empirical evidence that policing measures actually work with no study able to demonstrate a correlation between money laundering measures and risk factors at any point in time.

This paper provides practical and theoretical insights into what works in money laundering and the role of scientific evaluations. It is particularly relevant for the successful implementation of anti-money laundering policy measures, including, for example, the UK’s Economic Crime Plan 2023–2026, which aspires to measure the progress and impact of policing in this area.

Cressey’s Fraud Triangle has been referenced in 8,584 studies and academic papers [1] and is a stalwart of training courses for accounting and audit practitioners and fraud investigators. The Fraud Triangle has endured for three decades in the academic and practitioner worlds. This study aims to explore the origins of Cressey’s Fraud Triangle and challenge its practical value to a fraud investigator.

This study has developed from analysis of a targeted literature review carried out as part of a wider study into occupational fraud and corruption.

Cressey’s name is intrinsically linked to the Fraud Triangle, although he never used the expression during his lifetime. Two of the three motivational factors identified by Cressey (1953) were developed from the earlier work of Svend Riemer (1941), who it is suggested should have equal billing with Donald Cressey for the concepts that led to the creation of the Fraud Triangle.

The paper illustrates the limitations of Cressey’s Fraud Triangle for practitioners.

Many academics and researchers have either misunderstood Cressey’s role in the development of the Fraud Triangle or been unaware of its true origins. Although the pioneering work of Riemer is referenced in a 2014 study on the Fraud Triangle by Alexander Schuchter and Michael Levi, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to identify the influence of Riemer on Cressey’s thinking and the development of the Fraud Triangle.

This paper aims to present findings based on the psychological profile of 17 offenders who have been convicted of occupational fraud, bribery or related offences. It provides findings on their specific psychological profiles using well-established psychological techniques to gauge personality. The study is also aimed to provide the foundations for further research on such profiles, which could eventually provide a screening tool to identify individuals who might be a higher risk of engaging in corrupt behaviours for organisations.

The research is based upon 17 interviews with white-collar offenders who were also asked to complete an Eysenck Personality Questionnaire to identify their profile.

This study postulates that sensation seeking, risk appetite, impulsivity and lower non-aggressive self-regulation dominate the E scale traits of white-collar offenders.

This paper is very much original in its design with few studies having been performed in this area.

THAT is the title of a survey by the National Joint Advisory Council which has just been issued by the Ministry of Labour. Properly assimilated by both sides of industry it could become an important document for a country continually under pressure to increase productivity. In his Foreword the Minister of Labour says that the number of manual workers engaged on a shift system has increased by more than half in the last ten years and expects the trend to continue.

It is an important style classification way to sort out suits according to the button arrangement. However, since the different dressing ways of suit cause the buttons to be easily occluded, the traditional identification methods are difficult to identify the details of suits, and the recognition accuracy is not ideal. The purpose of this paper is to solve the problem of fine-grained classification of suit by button arrangement. Taking men's suits as an example, a method of coordinate position discrimination algorithm combined faster region-based convolutional neural network (R-CNN) algorithm is proposed to achieve accurate batch classification of suit styles under different dressing modes.

The detection algorithm of suit buttons proposed in this paper includes faster R-CNN algorithm and coordinate position discrimination algorithm. Firstly, a small sample base was established, which includes six suit styles in different dressing states. Secondly, buttons and buttonholes in the image were marked, and the image features were extracted by the residual network to identify the object. The anchors regression coordinates in the sample were obtained through convolution, pooling and other operations. Finally, the position coordinate relation of buttons and buttonholes was used to accurately judge and distinguish suit styles under different dressing ways, so as to eliminate the wrong results of direct classification by the network and achieve accurate classification.

The experimental results show that this method could be used to accurately classify suits based on small samples. The recognition accuracy rate reaches 95.42%. It can effectively solve the problem of machine misjudgment of suit style due to the cover of buttons, which provides an effective method for the fine-grained classification of suit style.

A method combining coordinate position discrimination algorithm with convolutional neural network was proposed for the first time to realize the fine-grained classification of suit style. It solves the problem of machine misreading, which is easily caused by buttons occluded in different suits.

Computers with graphics screens and pointing devices such as the ‘mouse’ provide the opportunity for highly interactive user interfaces. This paper describes some novel software for displaying documents on graphics screens: the software provides a fast and simple way for users to peruse documents and to examine the parts that interest them. One application of the software is as a front end to a document retrieval system, since it provides a way for users to identify quickly the records that are of relevance to them and to provide feedback between the user and the underlying retrieval system.